Delirium
by Just A Little Birdy
Summary: "There are people that live in the sky," she replies, sounding awestruck. "Did you know that, Keat?" (Runs well beyond the events of the movie. T for content and possibly swears; dystopia is never pretty)
1. Hunger

_A/N; I promised myself I wasn't working on anything new until I finish Flicker...but then I finally watched Elysium and there are just so many things to be explored here and I couldn't help myself :3 You know how it goes._

 _This will be significantly shorter than most multichapter fics, and carries on through the events of the movie and beyond. There are no canon characters included (sorry!), so if you're here in hopes of a specific character, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Hopefully it's interesting anyway._

 _Reviews are love. Enjoy._

* * *

\- O N E -

Even as a child, Theresa is hungry.

Not that she ever knows real hunger, not like the millions of children she looks down on every day from her home in their sky. It's knowledge that she craves, her brain demanding more and more of it every day, like her lungs demand oxygen, or her stomach demands food. While the other children can sit still and watch movies, or immerse themselves in game after stupid game, she's always thinking, always moving, investigating this or that, asking endless questions about the way the world works.

Though it's an unusual trait for a child of Elysium, where there is enough to keep someone entertained for several lifetimes, her parents don't have much trouble dealing with it. For the most part, they direct her to the droids for her answers – eventually, they purchase a general purpose droid specifically to follow her around and answer her questions, so that she won't bother them anymore and they can live at least some of their inconsequential lives in peace. In fact, the next time they really take any notice of her is when her father finds out that she named the droid – Chia, from a book it showed her one time.

"You shouldn't do that," he scolds her. "What happens if we give droids individuality?"

"They rewrite their protocol," she murmurs, kicking at the carpet. She doesn't tell him that she thinks it's silly, that old rule. That it's never actually been proven, except in works of fiction. It was just a common paranoia, the idea that AI programmed to learn with her would one day surpass everything it was ever made for and take over the world (a scary concept, true – but something that had yet to happen to any droid she'd heard of).

"Sorry, Pa," she tacks onto the end, and he waves her away. He's got a faceful of frown lines to get rid of before their dinner guests arrive.

The droid keeps its name, though only when they're alone. Theresa's smart enough to watch what she says to it in the company of others, and takes a secret vindictive joy in the fact that it never turns against her.


	2. Wonder

\- T W O -

School is a courtesy more than anything these days, and she's easily top of the class. There's only one teacher that she likes. He's soft and kind, with an older face not always seen around Elysium, and he refuses to adhere to the common courtesies usually afforded to the teachers – they call him Keat. He sits with Theresa at lunch, sometimes, and answers the questions that just can't wait until she sees Chia again at the end of the day.

One day, he finds her lying in the grass, staring up at the sky with wide eyes. However hard he tries, he can't quite fathom what it is that has her so fascinated, though he spends a few minutes himself staring at the sky while trying to figure it out. All he sees is the sun and the stars, and the planet whose face they loom over, day in and day out. The moon is nowhere in sight today, hiding below them, he supposes. He was never one for astrology, however much he likes to learn.

"What are you looking at?" he asks the little girl eventually, giving up on his own search.

"There are people that live in the sky," she replies, sounding awestruck as she points to the planet above (below?) them. "Did you know that, Keat?"

A laugh bubbles from his lips. "I did, in fact." He sits down next to her, and turns his face upwards again. "But you know, to them, _we_ are the ones in the sky."

She frowns at him, trying to figure through what he was saying. "But _they_ are in the sky," she insisted. "I am here, on the ground, and they are floating around up there."

"They're not floating," he corrects gently. "They walk and run and jump and fall just like we do." He considers trying to explain the concept of gravity to her, but it's too big a concept for a six year old. "Where did you find this out?" he asks instead.

"The droids told me," she explains easily.

"Ah."

Silence falls. She stares upwards, never blinking, her mind racing at a million miles an hour. The sky was beautiful, she thought – packed full of far-away stars and galaxies, sometimes with the cracked, cratered surface of the moon. And always, always with the visage of planet earth below, changing each and every day. So many people missed it, never looked up even once in their day…sometimes, she stands and looks just so that there's at least one person appreciating it.

"What's it like?" she wonders out loud.

"What?" Keat replies.

"Up there," she explains. "What's it like living there?"

All at once, Keat feels like he's being backed into a corner. If he can't tell her about _gravity_ , there's no way to explain poverty, or overpopulation, or epidemics…just three of the many, many things they were blessed to never have to live with, up here in their paradise in the sky.

"Probably just like Elysium," he lies instead.

"But there aren't any walls," she continues, and just from her voice he can tell this is more of a dream than an argument to his points. "And it turns and turns, and sometimes it would be dark, and sometimes light. And there could be lawns that go on forever and you could run and run and never find the end of them, and there would be so many more stars to see…"

A bell sounds, signalling the end of her break. She leaps up and skips off, all her lovely dreams still swirling around inside her head.


	3. Further

"What's it like living in the sky?" she asks another teacher a few years later, still unable to get any definitive answers from Chia.

The teacher looks appalled. "What on earth are you talking about, Theresa?" she asks, aghast.

"The planet," Theresa explains, pointing at the ceiling. "What's it like living there?"

"I have no idea," her teacher snaps, once she fully processes what is being asked of her. "And it's none of your business either. Why do you even want to know these things? Whatever's there, it can't be better than Elysium." And that's all anyone will ever tell Theresa on the topic from then on.


	4. Watcher

There are beautiful gardens on Elysium, and she's determined to explore them all. That's how she's far away from home, wandering down twisting paths lined with flower bushes and tall, shady trees, when they come.

It's pure luck that they come through the garden, that she kneels down in the dirt to finger the velveteen petals of a flower just as they cross the path. She's not hiding that well, but the mother's eyes are on the sky and so it's enough to convince them to pass without noticing her. Theresa notices them though, gets a good look as they hide a moment under the cover of a tree, before catching sight of the house and moving on again.

The very sight of them takes her breath away; she has to put one hand flat against the cool dirt to steady herself. There are two of them, a mother and a little boy unconscious in her arms; they're streaked in dirt and blood and dressed in clothes that are little more than rags in comparison to the brand new sundress she is wearing. Underneath all the grime, she sees a glimpse of rough, sun darkened skin and the scars that pay testament to the living of a hard life. That's when she knows they're not from Elysium; the people here are satin smooth and without a mark on their body.

As they run away again, she catches sight of a gruesome wound on the boy's leg, the bandage that had covered it falling forgotten into a flowerbed. It's a myriad of colours she didn't even know a leg could _be_ , and oozing something black and putrid. No, they're definitely not supposed to be here, she decided, her stomach turning at the sight of it. There's nothing as horrible as that in Elysium.

Her eyes follow them all the way to the house. They smash through a window and disappear. The droids come, and as they leave, she sees the boy walking, his legs just as fine as hers. Their mad flight through the garden, and all the potential weapons in that house, and all they'd wanted was a cure?

Why couldn't they just ask?


	5. Partner

F I V E

" _You've_ seen refugees?"

It's a girl who asks the question, older than her with braids in her hair and skin the colour of coffee. Her voice is cynical and she has an attitude – she wears clothes made for boys just because it makes other people turn their nose up at her. Theresa is encaptured immediately. "I have, actually," she replies, and the girl sniffs.

"Where?" she asks, and it sounds like a test.

"English Gardens, two years ago." The girl's whole expression changes; the dark, suspicious cloud that was hanging over her head disappears, and she's almost beautiful, except for the frown still etched on her face.

"Jakobi Blake," she introduces herself, sticking out her hand for Theresa to shake, which she does.

"Theresa Pennington," the smaller girl replies with a smile that could win over most anybody. Jakobi is immune to any charm, just grunts and waves over a boy, tall and soft and much more easy-going than herself.

"This is Bay," she says as way of introduction.

"What have you found, Jakobi?" he asks, sounding almost wary.

"Says she saw the English Garden lot a few years back."

His eyes widen. "You're interested in refugees?" he asks Theresa. She nods.

"You want her?" Jakobi is impatient, tapping her foot as Bay falls deep in thought.

His next question isn't to Jakobi. "How old are you? You can't be more than ten."

"I'm _twelve_ ," a disgruntled Theresa replies.

He almost laughs, but it's overtaken by a darker expression, by a frown that tells of deeper thoughts. "Too young," he says in an aside to Jakobi.

She waves him away. "We were eleven when we started. And we need the extra person. Do you want the truth or not?"

It's enough to convince him; he turns back to Theresa with a smile. "What would you do to find out where they come from?"


End file.
